Seniority of promotees turns on actual promotion basis; interim benefits cannot create a permanent advantage after failure of the challenge.

Seniority among promotee Excise Inspectors depended on the actual date, source and criteria of promotion, not on a deemed common date. Officers promoted earlier against vacancies under the unamended rules on merit could not be placed below later promotees appointed under the amended rules on seniority subject to fitness. The High Court erred in treating both groups as if promoted from the same date and in applying the seniority rule on that mistaken factual basis. The Court also held that an interim order cannot be allowed to create a lasting seniority advantage once the underlying challenge fails, and the interim benefit had to be neutralised.

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Issues: Whether the seniority list of Excise Inspectors promoted as Assistant Excise Commissioners could be set aside on the footing that all promotees were notionally promoted from the same date and their seniority had to follow the inter se seniority in the feeding cadre; and whether the earlier interim order of the Court, which enabled continued promotions despite the dismissal of the special leave petition, had to be neutralised by applying the equitable principle of restitution.

Analysis: The promotions of the appellants and the respondents were not made under the same selection process or on the same criteria. The appellants were promoted against earlier vacancies under the unamended rules on the basis of merit, whereas the respondents were promoted later against carried-forward vacancies under the amended rules on the basis of seniority subject to rejection of unfit. Their notional dates of promotion were also different. The High Court erred in treating both sets of officers as if they had been promoted from one and the same date and in applying Rule 6 of the U.P. Government Servants Seniority Rules, 1991 on that erroneous factual premise. The Court further held that a litigant cannot retain an advantage obtained solely because of an interim order when the challenge ultimately fails, and the principle that no person should suffer by an act of the Court requires the interim benefit to be neutralised.

Conclusion: The appellants were entitled to rank above the respondents in seniority. The quashing of the seniority list was unsustainable, and the earlier seniority list was restored.

Ratio Decidendi: Seniority among promotees must be determined by the actual date and source of promotion, and an interim order that temporarily preserves a benefit cannot be allowed to confer a permanent seniority advantage once the underlying challenge fails.

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